


Soggy Marshmallows

by tinymacaroni



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Camping, Fluff, Lance is Cuban, M/M, They argue, but he's not used to using it bc language barriers when he started at garrison, keith's an orphan, kind of?, klance, lance is fluent in spanish and it's his first language, sort of platonic but maybe not, the title is a joke from my friend who told me to write this, with some angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-08-08 10:58:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7755052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinymacaroni/pseuds/tinymacaroni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Keith and Lance are sent on a recon mission on an alien planet together, and get to know each other through the power of arguing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soggy Marshmallows

"What's with you?" Keith shot Lance a look, pushing a broad purple leaf out of the way. "It's just a little rain."

"A little rain? A  _ little _ rain? It's pouring! Our bags are probably soaked through, I can barely see three feet in front of me, and it's freezing!" He shouldered aside a thick, striped branch, looking distinctly vexed.

"So? You're always going on about how much you miss Earth and rain. That's why Coran even sent you down here, you're always complaining about how homesick you are."

"I'm from Cuba. Have you been to Cuba? Do you know anything about where Cuba is? Because let me tell you, freezing rain? Not exactly part of our weather system down there."

"What about at Garrison? Plenty of freezing rain around there, if memory serves."

"Garrison wasn't home. Garrison was never home." Lance's expression softened a bit, looking sad, before looking back up, his eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Since when do you care, anyway? Is this some prank or something?"

"What? No, why would I be pulling a prank on you? I'm just making conversation while we look for this place."

"Oh, right, like I'm gonna believe that. You hate me! We're rivals! Why would you be making polite conversation if not in some effort to sabotage me?"

Keith wheeled around angrily, trying to keep from shouting. "I don't hate you, Lance! I have never hated you! You're annoying and reckless and sometimes just downright idiotic, but I don't hate you!"

"Okay okay that's great and all," Lance said quietly, trying to calm Keith down. "But I  _ really _ think you need to quit yelling for just a minute and--"

"Why should I?" he snapped, his volume steadily rising. "You're the one who's always loud and obnoxious on the ship, maybe it's my turn for a change!" He gestured emphatically as he spoke, accidentally hitting a couple of the closer tree branches, causing water droplets to spray around them even in the torrential rain.

"Right, yes, you can get on my case all you want later, but we  _ need _ to get out of here--"

"Oh, suddenly it's about what 'we' need to do? Since when do you care about the missions anyway? All you do on them is flirt with whatever moves anyway!"

"I appreciate you have your hangups about me and we can talk about this but we need to MOVE!" Lance shouted, grabbing Keith's wrist and pulling him out of the way as an animal leapt out of the gloom, barely missing the two paladins as they tore into a dead sprint.

"Why didn't you say something sooner?!" Keith yelled over the pounding of their feet and the rain, ducking below low-hanging branches, trying not to slip on the slick mud of the forest floor.

"It's not like you gave me much of a chance!" Lance called back, yanking Keith down a small side path and pressing them back against some thick trees. He clamped his hand over Keith's mouth before he could respond, watching for the creature to pass before allowing himself to relax.

"What the hell is your problem?" Keith snapped the second Lance withdrew his hand.

"I was  _ trying _ to keep us from getting  _ eaten _ !" Lance snarked back, looking furious. "Which wouldn't have even been a problem if  _ you _ hadn't lost it and started screaming back there! And now we're lost on an alien planet with no-- what now?" He looked quizzically at his begrudging companion, who was looking past him now.

"I...don't think we're lost." He held up a screen with an image of the building they were seeking, comparing it to the one before them. Despite centuries of wear and tear, the temple was surprisingly intact. Covered in green and purple moss, cracked here and there, and missing a portion of its roof, it was still recognizable as an Altean structure, with Altean script carved here and there, and secondary buildings similar to the lion hangars on the ship.

"Huh. Well. How about that." The two walked up to the building, pulling thick, fragrant vines away from the walls, slowly revealing the entryway. Inside was dark, except where thin, faintly violet light and rain trickled in through the missing chunks of ceiling. "Mm. Yeah. Nice atmosphere here, mhm. So...remind me, why did we go through a bunch of rain to come to an empty spooky building?"

"Because Allura wants us to take a look and see if there's anything we can find out here about Altean history, the Galra, Voltron...anything. It's all we've really got to go on right now anyway."

"I guess…" Lance still looked wary as he approached the doorway, calling out into the darkness. "Hellooo? Anybody home?" He shrugged as no reply but his own echo came back, and Keith rolled his eyes as he followed him in.

"Well, at least it's mostly dry in here. We can sleep in here tonight, and look around tomorrow to see if there's anything worth bringing back." Lance nodded and set his pack on the ground, pulling out a glowing blue lantern and setting it down before pulling his items out of his pack. Keith did the same nearby, but started actually building his small sleeping area before pulling everything else out, looking over at Lance's disorganized set up. "Really? That's how you make a camp? You're gonna lose track of everything and when you set your food directly on the ground like that you risk getting whatever thousands-of-years old dirt is in here mixed into your food. It's like you just never think through anything you do."

"Hey!" Lanced snapped, looking over, clearly irritated. "My system works for me, and I don't remember asking you a damn thing about it! In fact, why don't you mind your own business, mullet boy!" He went back to setting up his sleeping area, still fuming. " _ Pendejo _ ," he muttered to himself.

"Hey! I heard that! I don't know what you said, but I heard it!"

"What, nobody ever taught you Spanish? I told you to shove off and mind your own damn business!" He angrily moved his food to a pile on top of his bag, standing up to take off his blue and white paladin suit.

"What are you doing now?" Keith looked up, looking generally disinterested by now.

"What, do you think I'm gonna sleep in this thing? For one, it's wet and will get all my blankets wet. For another, it's uncomfortable as hell. Besides, it's way warmer in here than it is out there, as long as we avoid the entryways and the ceiling hole." He finished slipping out of the garment, laying it out on the floor to dry, wearing a grey t-shirt and blue board shorts underneath it.

"Eh. You have a point I guess." Keith shrugged, taking his paladin suit off as well, wearing a black tanktop and a pair of red boxers beneath his. He looked over at Lance, who was giving him a strange look. "What?"

"You're wearing boxers."

"Well… yeah. They're only a couple inches shorter than your shorts, and it's not like I was thinking ahead to what I planned to sleep in tonight. Some of us have more on our minds than sleep, y'know." He sat down on his sleeping bag, pulling his spare blanket around his shoulders.

"And yet you came unprepared. Tsk tsk. I thought you were better than that," Lance mocked. "The great Keith, left unprepared in his boxer shorts. Such a shame." He sat on his sleeping bag as well, digging through his pile of food. Hunk had been working with Coran on recipes that tasted better than the usual Altean fare they got, and while it was no home-cooked  _ congri _ , it was a lot better than the green goo the castle produced by default. He opened a container full of vibrant blue soup with dark green and pale blue vegetables of some sort and dug into it with a spoon.

"Bite me," Keith muttered, looking away. He grabbed a round container of bright orange noodles in a deep red sauce, looking back at Lance. "Where'd you get that scar?"

"Huh? Oh, this one?" Lance gestured at a pale semicircle on his thigh. "Barracuda bite. They're usually not aggressive, but my little brother accidentally stepped on one, and when I went to grab him it bit me. Turned out okay, but it was nasty at the time. I'm just lucky it didn't get infected, coulda lost my whole leg!" he joked.

"Did you have a lot of siblings? I remember when we were trying the mind meld thing, all you could think about was your family."

"I do, yeah. Mom, dad, three brothers and a sister, three  _ tías _ and two  _ tíos _ , and a whole heap of cousins. We all lived pretty close to each other, even after my older siblings moved out they stayed in the area. Well, all of us until I went to Garrison, anyway…"

"Wow. That's...a lot." Keith raised his eyebrows, looking surprised. "I honestly can't even imagine what that would be like. It was always just me and mom growing up, and after she died I joined up at Garrison just to have a place to live." He sighed softly, looking down into his bowl.

"Oh. Wow. That's...I didn't know. I'm sorry." Lance looked at him sincerely, finding himself wishing he could offer any comfort.

"I mean, don't get me wrong, I always wanted to be a pilot, but… I just wish she'd have been there to see it. Although, at least she's not around to miss me now. Do you think your family knows you're gone?"

"Definitely. I always used to write letters back home, and I'm sure Garrison's told our families by now that we're gone." He set down his bowl of soup, leaning back to look at the dimly illuminated cracks in the ceiling. "...If we ever make it back to Earth, you should try my mom's beans and rice. It's some of the best food I've ever eaten."

"Huh?" Keith looked up, surprised.

"Well, maybe you won't like it as much as I like it, but it sure beats green goo and nunville, I can tell you that."

"No, I mean...did you just invite me to your house?"

"I mean, in a hypothetical situation where we make it back to Earth without dying or having the rest of our families die…Yeah. I guess I did." He shrugged, drinking the rest of his bright blue soup broth.

"You're insane. Besides, what are you going to say? 'Hi mom, hi dad. I disappeared to fight an interstellar war, I'm back now, and this is Keith who I hate but I took pity on him because he's an orphan so let's feed him'? Yeah, no thanks. Leave me out of your self-aggrandizing pity plays."

"Okay, first of all, I don't think I've ever said 'hi mom, hi dad' in my life. Namely because my parents  _ barely speak English _ . Secondly, who the hell uses the word 'self-aggrandizing'? And third, yeah, maybe I do feel bad for you sometimes, but god dammit Keith can't I just  _ try _ to reach out and be friends without you getting all emo and pissy on me? Yeah, you know what, maybe I am a jerk to you, but for  _ five fucking years _ I thought of you as my rival, and you barely even remembered my name! I  _ liked _ competing with you, it challenged me and made me the pilot I am now, and you never even noticed me! Okay, sure, maybe we weren't as neck and neck as I liked to think sometimes, but I  _ looked up to you _ , and you treated me like the gum on the bottom of your shoe! Hell, you  _ still _ treat me like garbage! And any time I try to make conversation, you insult me, and any time I try to play your little game and insult you, you either ignore me or you leave! I don't know how to win with you!" Lance found himself nearly shouting by the end of his short speech, out of breath and with his face slightly flushed.

"I...What?" Keith stammered, looking shocked. "What are you talking about? You're  _ always _ insulting me, either making jokes about my hair, or calling me stupid, or calling me a drop-out! And any time we're training or even in  _ actual combat _ , you throw me under the bus! You've almost gotten me  _ killed _ before! And yeah, maybe I didn't remember you and I'm  _ sorry _ for that but I was busy trying to figure out how I was gonna make it once I dropped out when I had no money and no job! And it's not like you ever actually  _ introduced _ yourself to me, you and Hunk just sat in the back of all our classes and made fun of me, and then you'd walk away from the score postings every month looking pissed because I beat you! If you'd said something to me, I would have been more than happy to talk to you or give you advice or be your rival, but you didn't think of that, did you?" Keith was shouting now too, his blanket on the floor where he'd thrown it as he was gesturing with his arms while he talked.

"Well yeah, because you always had that loner vibe!"

" _ Because I didn't have any friends, you moron! _ "

"O-oh." Lance's face turned beet red, realizing just how much of an ass he was. "I didn't...I never realized. I figured you just didn't  _ want _ to hang out with people, since you never really seemed to...like people."

"We were twelve, Lance. What twelve year old doesn't want friends?" Keith's voice softened, his shoulders falling.

"Good point. I...I'm sorry." He held out a bag of small, round orange snacks that smelled like a strange but pleasant blend honey and curry. "Um...Peace offering?"

"Thanks." Keith took the bag gratefully, popping a few of the snacks into his mouth before setting it back down in the space between them. He yawned, suddenly exhausted, and grabbed his blanket from where he'd left it on the floor.

"We should probably get some sleep. Think we should sleep in shifts in case anything comes in at night, or…?"

"Couldn't hurt. You wanna watch first or sleep first?"

"You go ahead and sleep. I'll wake you up in a few hours."

"Thanks. And wake me up if something does attack, I'll keep my bayard next to me, since yours is shit in close-range fights." Keith smirked a little, refusing to let the moment pass without at least a little ribbing.

"Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm sure I can take anything that comes in here, but I'm not passing on an opportunity to annoy you," Lance shot back. He grinned as Keith barked a short laugh, and smiled fondly as he watched the red paladin get into his sleeping bag. "G'night, you ass."

"I heard that."

"Go to sleep."

**Author's Note:**

> So, a couple things. First off, thank you to miraculouslazybug for her assistance on Spanish insults and for reading the first draft bit. Secondly, I am not Cuban so references to Lance's upbringing are researched, so obviously my info may not be accurate. If you are Cuban or have experience with Cuban culture and you see something I messed up (maybe he wouldn't have said a particular thing, maybe I referenced something untrue), PLEASE let me know! I tried to research anything I was unsure about, but again, the internet isn't always right.  
> Third and most importantly - this fic has two, maybe three directions it can go. If people are satisfied with the ending, it can stay like this, a oneshot (with possibly an epilogue back on the ship where they tell everyone they're friends now). Or, if you guys like what you read and want more, I can turn this into a multichapter fic, probably with more exploring of non-platonic Klance, but there won't be any explicit content in this fic. Sooo yeah. Tell me what you think!


End file.
